STUDENT EDITION

PowerPoint Presentation by
Gail B. Wright
Professor Emeritus of Accounting
Bryant University

MANAGEMENT
ACCOUNTING
8th EDITION
BY

Copyright 2007 Thomson South-Western, a part of The

Thomson Corporation. Thomson, the Star Logo, and
South-Western are trademarks used herein under license.

HANSEN & MOWEN

4 ACTIVITY-BASED PRODUCT COSTING

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LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. Discuss the importance of unit costs.
2. Describe functional-based costing
approaches.
3. Tell why functional-based costing
approaches may produce distorted costs.

Continued
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LEARNING OBJECTIVES
4. Explain how an activity-based costing
system works for product costing.
5. Explain how the number of activity rates
can be reduced.

LO 1

UNIT COST: Definition

Unit cost is the
total cost associated with the
units produced divided by the #
of units produced.
(Total cost) / (# units produced)

LO 1

What is meant by total cost?

Total cost refers to production

costs: a), ?direct materials, b) ?
direct labor, c) manufacturing
overhead
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LO 1

How do we measure the costs

to be assigned?

Production costs we assign may

be actual or estimated
?
costs.

LO 1

How do we assign costs to a

product?

Production costs are assigned by

1 of 2 methods: functional?
based or activity?
based costing.

LO 1

UNIT COSTS
Affect
Bids submitted for special products
Development, introduction of new products
Decisions to
Make or buy a product or service
Accept or reject a special order
Keep or drop a product or service

LO 1

CAPACITY LEVELS: Definition

Fill in the blanks
Expected
Expected activity capacity is output for coming year
Normal activity capacity is average activity
experienced over long term
Theoretical activity capacity is absolute maximum
Theoretical
that can be achieved in perfect world

Practical activity capacity is maximum that can be

Practical
achieved under efficient operation
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LO 2

PLANTWIDE RATE:
An Example
Budgeted overhead

$360,000

Expected activity (in DLH)

100,000
Actual activity (in DLH)
100,000
Actual overhead
$380,000
Predetermined rate = Budgeted cost / Estimated activity usage
= $360,000 / 100,000
= $3.60 per DLH
Applied overhead = Overhead rate x Actual activity
= $3.60 x 100,000
=

$360,000

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LO 2

What if applied overhead

($360,000) differs from actual
overhead ($380,000)?

Underapplied (overapplied)
(overapplied)
overhead is a variance that is
added
addedto
to (subtracted from) cost
of goods sold.

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LO 3

How does a company know if

its functional-based costing is
producing distorted costs?

There are many symptoms of

distorted costs, such as profit
margins that are difficult to
explain.

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LO 3

CREATING DISTORTIONS
When a unit-level approach is used to
assign non-unit-level costs
(overhead), cost information can be
distorted.

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LO 4

How do you identify activities

& their attributes?

Use a key set of interview

questions and record the
answers.

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LO 4

RESOURCE DRIVER: Definition

Factors that measure the

consumption of resources by
activities.

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LO 4

How do you assign activity

costs?

Activity costs are assigned to

products on the basis of usage
usage.

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LO 4

CLASSIFICATION OF ACTIVITIES
Product costs can be assigned at a)
unit level, 2) batch level, 3) product
level or 4) facility level.

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LO 5

ACTIVITY BASED COST SYSTEM

Reduce size, complexity by reducing rates

Using consumption ratios
By approximating ABC

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LO 5

COMPARING SYSTEMS
Functional-based system
Overhead uses only unit-based activity drivers or
Splits overhead into fixed and variable and
allocates overhead based on the appropriate unitlevel rate

Activity-based system
Improves product costing by
Looking at cause & effect
Recognizing that some fixed overhead varies in
proportion to changes other than production volume
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CHAPTER 4

THE END

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